Staff MemberPremium Member

As frequently happens with these large-scale corporate mergers, there is more to meets the eye than originally thought. According to a report in Reuters, Google will still have their hands in the pie indirectly after the sale of Motorola to Lenovo. Apparently, part of the sale price will include 618.3 million Lenovo shares at $1.213 per share. This will give Google a $750 Million dollar stake in Lenovo, the new parent company of Motorola. This is just one part of the $2.91 Billion dollar cash and stock deal between the companies.

Obviously, this doesn't mean Google will have any direct say in how Motorola is run afterwards, but it likely means they will be on the board so they can help guide policy. At this point, that is pure speculation, and it is entirely possible Google will simply stay hands off. Of course, there is one possibility that many of us may not have considered... now that Motorola will no longer be owned by Google, there is no reason for Google to hold back and possibly create a Motorola Nexus device. Since Moto won't be a Google entity, the other Android OEMs won't have reason to suspect favoritism if Google decides to award the Lenovo/Motorola with a Nexus contract in the future.

Perhaps now a Motorola Nexus device is more of a possibility than it was before. Just food for thought...

Stock in these types of transactions is pretty common and doesn't mean much. It's about a 7% stake in Lenovo, and not enough to exert any unwanted influence, really. Google will probably slowly unload those shares over time.